A Linguistic Analysis of Turkish Newspapers Published Between the Late Ottoman and the Early Republican Eras

Abstract

The aim of this work is to investigate the evolution of the Turkish language through an analysis of the newspapers’ articles published between the Late Ottoman and the Early Turkish Republican Eras. To conduct this analysis, this work focuses on the etymology of words used in the newspapers’ articles. We decided to focus on newspapers for two main reasons. On the one hand, press emerged in the Turkish cultural context with the aim to inform people about subjects of public interest (e.g., politics, economy, culture). Consequently, newspapers needed to adopt a language register that could be understood by a wide audience. On the other hand, we decided to focus on the language of newspapers since the latter represent one of the most effective means through which language spreads among speakers. Concerning this matter, we analysed articles from newspapers published in the Late Ottoman Era such as Tasvir-i Efkâr, İkdam and Tercüman-ı Hakikat, as well as others from the Early Republican Era such as Cumhuriyet, Akşam and Milliyet. Articles included in this analysis were published between 1864 and 1936. Through the analysis of these examples, the scope of this work is to find an answer to the question on whether there are common features in Turkish language between the Late Ottoman and the Early Republican Eras. Moreover, this paper aims to understand the impact of the language reform on the evolution of Turkish.

Keywords

• turkish language reform
• history of the turkish press
• late ottoman era
• early turkish republican era